Tuesday, August 28, 2012

The Implications of Technology

As I was checking through the various tech blogs I follow this morning, I came across this video on Wired, focused on the potential implications of having self-driving cars. (First of all, can I just say how cool it is that I can write a sentence like that, and it's actually believable--that we'll be living in a place where the cars can drive themselves, and it might only be a decade or two off? That's amazing.) For reference, here's the video:

Did you watch it? Good. Then you don't need me to tell you how it focused on how self-driving cars might start to exhibit flocking tendencies. The mental image he describes--of a bunch of cars shying away from an aggressive, non-controlled sports car--is just fascinating to me, and I could totally see that happening. Whether it will or not . . . who knows?

That's the thing about advancing technology. It seems to rarely go the way we think it will. Innovation is innovation because it's unexpected. If you could plan for it, it wouldn't be innovation. I imagine this is also why advances in technology rarely feel as awesome and incredible as we dreamed they would be. You have one dream, and reality is different. But every now and then, I love taking a step back and realizing just how marvelous it all can be.